


Not a Hero

by Dark_Writer



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Angst, Canonical Character Death, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-22
Updated: 2013-01-22
Packaged: 2017-11-26 10:22:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 437
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/649547
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dark_Writer/pseuds/Dark_Writer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He misses her, dreadfully so to the point where he would not play these games anymore. He couldn't.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Not a Hero

He sat overlooking the starship UK wondering at what his life had become. Nearly a millennium and what had he done? Sure, he had helped people, saved _entire galaxies_ more than once, but for what? What was the result of it? More enemies than he cared for? As many lives lost as he had saved resting on his soul? The loss of more than one love?

_The loss of her?_

He shook his head. She was never his to lose to begin with. She was always Rory’s and he had always respected that. Over and over again he had to convince himself that he was nothing more than a best friend, a _brother_ to her, roles made all the more complicated by the relationship he had had with her daughter.

“Hello sweetie.”

Speak of the devil and she appears. He turned and gave a weak smile to the woman who had appeared in the TARDIS seemingly out of nowhere. There was understanding in the way she regarded him, knowledge of loss, though not as numerous or as heavy as his, but just as great in the way it had shaped her.

“Oh River. It _is_ good to see you again.”

“It wasn’t me you were thinking about, though,” she said as she sat next to him. “I don’t think you’ve been thinking of anyone else, have you?”

“How can I think of anyone else? I’ve ruined her life more than any of the others. I’ve ruined _yours_.”

“Maybe, but the decision to go was hers. Can you really say that she made the wrong decision?”

He did not reply, knowing just how right she was. _She_ had been the one to choose even when he had begged her to stay in the present, to stay with _him_. It was her choice and it was one that he would have been hypocritical to have taken away.

“Everyone leaves me in the end, River. Even you.”

“And yet when has that ever stopped you?”

“Never, but maybe it should.”

“What do you mean?”

He stood up, his eyes never leaving the space whale and the city on its back. How long had it been since they had been there, determined to save the old creature and the people it protected?

“The Doctor will be no more. I’m retiring, River. Me and the old girl, we’re no longer going to harm anyone else. You’re always welcome to join me, of course, but I’m no longer going to play at being a saviour. I haven’t been one in some time and I don’t think I will be for quite a while.”


End file.
